of any translator,
I came to the conclusion that God had taken special care of the
translators of the Bible, for I could not help believing that He had no
interest whatever in the translations which we made daily for the
impatient ears of our instructors!

One could not help loving St. Paul, too, because he was such a good
fighter. When he said he fought with beasts, I was quite sure that these
beasts were the unreasonable and unrighteous persons who persecuted and
contradicted him. No obstacle deterred him, and he was gentle, too,
although he called things by their right names and his denunciations
were so vivid and mouthfilling that you knew his enemies must have been
afraid to open their lips while he was near them, whatever they might
have said behind his back.

My devotion to St. Paul brought me into disrepute one Friday at school
when discipline was relaxed, and the teacher condescended to
conversation. We were asked who was our favourite hero, and when it came
to my turn I answered "St. Paul." As George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,
Thomas Jefferson, General Grant, General Lee, Napoleon, and Alexander
the Great, had walked in procession before I produced my hero, I was
looked on as rather weakminded. The teacher, too, seemed astonished, and
he asked me on what grounds I founded my worship. This question, coming
suddenly, petrified me for a moment, and I answered, "He fought with
beasts." This was taken as a personal allusion by some of my dear
comrades with whom I had had altercations, and I was made to suffer for
it as much as these dear comrades deemed prudent. However, they
discovered that I had "language" on my side, for on the next composition
day, when we read aloud the work of our brains, I accused them of "being
filled with all iniquity," and other evil things which brought down a
horrified remonstrance from the teacher, who was unaccustomed to such
plain English, but he was knocked high and dry by the proof that I was
only quoting St. Paul to the Romans.

Perhaps I became too familiar with St. Paul. Be that as it may, I
regarded him as a very good friend indeed, for some of his "language,"
quoted in times of crisis, produced a much better effect on one's
enemies than any swear word that could be invented. I am not excusing my
attitude toward the Bible, but merely explaining how it affected my
youthful mind. There was something extremely romantic in the very
phrase, "the tumult of the silversmiths" at E